THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

The seminar in Arroyo Grande was great fun; the hosts at Gentle Touch Pet Training could not have been kinder, more supportive or better organized. The afternoon half day session on Play was a joy–and all that work creating a new seminar felt well worth it by the end of the day. During the Play Seminar and the Dog-Dog Reactivity sessions I got lots of questions from the audience, some of which I was able to answer that day, but some of which I didn’t get to. I thought I’d address some now, since there were some great ones that I thought deserved an answer.

One written question related to dogs who are over reactive when they see other dogs: “Is there ever a point where you give up on behavior modification and recommend strict management only?” Good question, yes? And the answer is YES and NO. There are certainly times in which I recommend strict management practices must always be followed. For example, I showed a video of a dog named Oscar, whose owners worked with me for over two years. Oscar was adopted from a shelter, taken to dog training class a few weeks later, walked into the door of the classroom and immediately crushed the skull of a young beagle after briefly sniffing it. What a nightmare. However, because of the dedicated work of the owners, Oscar changed from a dog who became physiologically hysterical when he even saw a dog blocks away, to a dog who was able to be loose in my pasture with Luke and Lassie. Except for one thing: Oscar had on a muzzle, and I strongly recommended that Oscar never ever ever be let loose around an unfamiliar dog without a muzzle. Not after causing that much damage, and not after starting as a dog unable to control himself at just the sight of another dog.

But I said “Yes” AND “No” because there are very few contexts in which some behavior modification isn’t useful. Oscar would never be let loose with unfamiliar dogs or taken to a dog park, but he could be taken to the vet clinic without causing a scene, and walking him on a leash was no longer a nightmare. For any dog, I would base my recommendations on how serious the problem was, how much time and interest the owners had to do behavior modification, and the goals of the owners. Bottom line, I’m always an advocate of “better safe than sorry.”

I’m not sorry we got to go to the central coast of California though. It was gorgeous, and we spent an ‘animal rapture’ hour watching Elephant Seals a few miles north of San Simeon (we skipped the Hearst Castle in favor of the seals, pretty clear where our priorities lie!). This time of year the sub-adult and adult males are on the coast to shed their coats (they actually lose an layer of skin too, and look pretty tacky before they are done.) The young males especially spend some of their time sparring together, in preparation no doubt for the breeding season to come this winter. Some of them weren’t doing much self-handicapping, we saw quite a few with bloody necks, although nothing like the wounds seen when they are fighting for real.

Here’s an older male (you can tell by the size of their ‘noses’.. their noses start as little Jimmy Durante buds and grow each year to absurd proportions). This one was all by himself, but making a heck of a racket as he displayed in the waves. (By the way, you can’t get an idea of size in these photos, but males can grow up to 6,000 pounds! These animals are HUGE!)

These two young males (see their smaller noses?) were quite the pair, bellowing and mock biting at each other for the longest time. There were 2 other pairs doing the exact same thing right beside them. Jim got this picture, and about 150 more! It was an amazing experience to watch them, and if you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it. Breeding season is in February, I’d love to go back and watch, then drive up the coast to see the Monarch butterflies hibernating in Big Sur.

Two more posts about play from presentations at APDT: this one about play between people and dogs, and a post coming on Friday regarding Karen London’s presentation on using play to treat aggression-related behavior problems.

I spoke in the afternoon about play between people and dogs. It’s a rich topic, with many nuances and complexities, and I only I had 45 minutes to address it, so I focused primarily on two issues: the importance of clear signals and the importance of pausing to allow emotional arousal to keep from overwhelmed our dogs.

CLEAR SIGNALS: Play bows in dogs are truly unique; there is no other species that I could find that had quite as clear a signal that means “Hey! I want to play, and everything I do next is meant playfully!” (Also see my post on Oct 21st.) In relation to that, I discussed the research of Rooney, Bradshaw and Robinson (2001) who video taped people trying to get their dogs to play (without using toys.) They found that people tried a variety of actions to get their dogs to play, some were effective and some weren’t. (And there was no correlation between how frequently someone tried a behavior and how effective it was! I just love that.. it is so human.)

People, ineffectually, tried whispering, patting the ground, kissing the dog and barking at the dog (to name a few). The effective signals were play bows, lunge toward and away (also called “start/stop” in other literature), running toward and away and adding vocalizations to other actions. I video taped a raft of cooperative people replicating the above, and here’s what came up:

1. People are REALLY bad at playing bows, unless they are willing and able to get down on all fours! (We’re just not designed to do it, you really need 4 legs after all.)

2. Running, as Rooney et al found, is a powerful way to elicit play (and has it’s dangers too… see Play Together, Stay Together by Karen London and me.)

3. “Start/Stop” is the easiest way to get many dogs in a playful frame of mind, but again, can elicit mouthiness or nipping in dogs if you’re not careful.

Keep in mind that the research kept toys out of the picture… as many of your comments have noted: there’s nothing like picking up a toy in front of a toy-loving dog to say RECESS! LET’S PLAY!

The other primary point of my talk was that dogs tend to play hard and fast and then pause, so that play sessions look like strings of play PAUSE play play PAUSE play PAUSE. This is especially true when they are play fighting (and less true, I suspect, when they are chasing and running). Given how many aspects of play, especially play fighting, are the same actions you see in serious fights, it makes sense that something needs to be built into the system to keep them cool. My suggestion is that we need to explain this to our clients in beginning family dog training classes… I think every beginning class should include a “How to Play with Your Dog” section in it. People are going to do it whether we bring it up or not, and besides emphasizing the value of object play, we can give them guidelines and boundaries about other types of play. We all know that play can go bad in a hurry (“I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.”) and it’s important for us to help owners avoid that.

Overall, I argued that play is a wonderful, wonderful way to enhance our healthy relationships with dogs (and is probably one of the reasons dogs and people get along so well.. play really isn’t that common among adult mammals) BUT, we need to be sure dogs understand when we are and when we are not playing, and play in such a way as to avoid over arousal. Karen London and I talk at length about the value of play, and how to do safely and constructively in Play Together, Stay Together (linked above)… I’d love to get your feedback on the booklet if you have it, on whether you include “How to Play” in your family dog training curriculum and/or more on how YOU play with your dog.

Here’s me playing silly with the same statue from the last post….